If you follow me on Instagram you would have noticed over the last couple weeks that I was talking about bathing suits in my stories. I asked for advice and recieved lots of recommendations but my situation is a little different and not everything is going to work for me. For starters I need someting without cups because I have - literally - no chest. It is soooo hard to find a bathing suit without cups! Even the one above has them but at least they are removable.) Then there is the issue of the partial bowel obstruction that has left me looking pregnant. The obstruction is gone but the fact that it rearranged my organs remains and I have been told that there is no hope for it going back to normal. This has been a hard pill to swallow. (And I swallow a lot of pills in a day.)
So I found two bathing suits I really liked - both having compression tops which means no cups and fitted so it doesn’t leave room for what is no longer there. One suit I had actually been looking at for a couple years. Moira’s response: “weren’t you going to order this suit last year and the year before - just do it mom!” Which, LOL, is easy for her to say but money-wise it takes me a long time to make a decision about spending money on myself. Anyway, I was all ready to order the one suit last week when I was told that the company JUST lauched a collaboration with Rifle Paper!!! (One of my favourite design companies.) So I ran to the computer (slowly) and checked out the new offerings and lo and behold the suit I wanted was now available with Rifle Paper flowers all over it. Okay sure it was $30 more than the regular suit but I thought to myself, “Self! We are going to treat ourselves!” So I put it in my cart, clicked on check out and noticed the $45 shipping charge.
Reader, this was the moment that I realized this was NOT a Canadian company (which I had thought for years). Anyway, prices being in American dollars, I quickly did the math and decided that I did not need this bathing suit in lieu of meeting our mortgage payments this month. Besides, there was another suit I like just as much from a Canadian company and a well known, well I don’t know what she is, Influencer? So I went and put that one in the cart. The total with shipping and taxes came out to be $180. And I couldn’t. I couldn’t spend that much money on a body that right now I am having a very hard time not hating.
And I think that right there is the crux of what my real problem is. I am not comfortable in this body. I mean, I can put on makeup and hide some things away but these days I never don’t look pregnant (and the result is that I have constant heart burn because my stomach has been pushed way up). I know I’m supposed to love the body I am in but IT ISN’T AS EASY AS ALL THE BODY POSITIVITY INFLUENCERS TELL YOU!
So Friday I took my two big girls to the mall with me hoping to find a bathing suit that I could afford. I appreciated all the suggestions for Canadian-made suits and so many of them were cute but I just can’t spend $200 on something I’m not sure how often I am going to get to wear. Anyway, we went to a well known lingerie/pyjama store and I tried on a number of suits much to the cheers and enthusiasm of my support team. And that’s the thing with children - they think you look beautiful no matter what. All I could see was this deformed body and all they could see was how beautiful mummy looks. I honestly wanted to cry. I know I need to change my attitude but it is hard when you have been told you are no longer attractive by someone who holds a lot of power in your life and so it is their voice you hear when you look in the mirror - not your own or the voices of your lovely children who think you’re beautiful no matter how many changes have happened to your body. They are just happy you are still here to be mommy and be hopeful enough that you are out buying bathing suits - which when I look at it that way I am hopeful.
So I bought a suit. It’s fine. It was affordable and has a ruffle on top that hides the flatness of my chest. I guess I was hoping for a miracle that something would miraculously hide my swollen belly but that isn’t going to happen. I’m not going to let this prevent me from trying to take the girls to the pool this summer as often as I feel able to or hopefully finding the courage to go into the lake with them when he go on vacation (I’m a little afraid of open water). I keep these thoughts to myself though because I want them to grow up thinking all bodies are beautiful and not pollute their minds with diet culture talk or a mom who can’t appreciate what she has and therefore they learn to do the same. Maybe it wouldn’t be so hard if I wasn’t always thin and pretty. But as I’ve been told I’m “no longer a 16 year old model” which, honestly thank goodness for that! (And I was 19, not 16 btw.) And I know, imperically, that I am still a good looking person. I’m not looking for comments about that. But knowing and believing some times are two different things.
And that, my friends, is the of the ongoing bathing suit sage - but not the ongoing saga of me trying to learn to love my cancer body.
In other cancer news this is scan week. I have three scans: CT, Bone Scan, and an internal ultrasound (why yes it is as uncomfortable as it sounds). I wrote a while ago about scanxiety but I’m pretty nervous already about this round. After all the complications I have been enduring over the last couple months I would be surprised if things were stable. I’m wondering if my chemo has stopped working - or stopped being effective enough that we have to make a change. So any good wishes and thoughts you want to send my way would be appreciated.
This exact thing happened to me when I went to the Rifle website and saw the shipping on their bathing suits!
Beautiful suit and beautiful you. Here's to swimming and positive scans , with love from London.xx